Pizarro, Orellana, and the Exploration of the Amazon (World Explorers)

Grade 10-12-- Both titles indicate wide-ranging coverage of their subjects, but Pizarro delivers better. And of the two, it has a more readable, comprehensible exposition in logical, chronological sequence. Stallones's Zebulon Pike is a rambler. He spends too much time dealing with Pike's superior, the scoundrel General James Wilkinson, throws in Pike's first trip into Wisconsin, mentions a few names of other explorers of the American southwest (and almost nothing about exploration of a large part of that region--western New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, and Colorado). He winds up with the assertion that the U. S. obtained the southwestern states by terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; while this is true, he does not mention that the later Gadsden Purchase secured parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Although the famous Pike's Peak is mentioned early on, readers won't understand why a peak was named after a klutz; Pike's ability as a military leader is not brought out, nor are his successes in his later official assignments. A better book is Keating's Zebulon Pike (Putnam, 1965; o.p.). Both are liberally illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of period prints and, sometimes, of later paintings. Eight-page inserts of full-color plates have little or no direct relevance to the text (particularly in Pizarro ). Two maps in Pizarro are more decorative than informative; one in Pike is useful, but the other is negligible. Finally, to make much sense of the picture credits in Pike , readers will have to be registered cryptanalysts. --George Gleason, Department of English, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield
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